You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

Machine guns have a very fascinating history in warfare. Ever since we figured out ways to throw lead at each other, we tried to find ways to do it faster. Machine guns are the ultimate lead-throwing device. There are several genres of machine guns; today, we are diving into a brief history of light machine guns.

What’s a Light Machine Gun

The definition of machine guns has changed drastically over the years. A Gatling gun is one of the first machine guns, but today, the ATF wouldn’t define it as a machine gun; rather, it is a semi-auto firearm due to its firing mechanism. Light machine gun is also a term that’s changed over the years. The M1919A4 was considered a light machine gun even though it weighed 31 pounds without its bipod.

The modern definition of a machine gun has evolved to the point where we have a fairly clear picture of the concept. A modern light machine gun—a significant advancement in warfare—chambers an intermediate cartridge that is belt-fed, fully automatic, and air-cooled.

Most importantly, it’s a weapon that a single soldier can use, distinguishing it from crew-served weapons. An assistant may be used but isn’t required by doctrine.

It’s important to understand that not all Squad Automatic Weapons meet the definition of light machine guns. Weapons like the RPK and M27 IAR are more akin to machine rifles rather than light machine guns. While the distinction may be arguable, it is not necessarily relevant to the history of light machine guns, which we are focusing on in this article.

The Rise of Light Machine Guns

World War I, a war fought with modern weapons but old-world tactics, was a turning point in the development of light machine guns. The war, which came to a near stalemate at several fronts, with miles of trenches, bombs, and wire forming a barrier that your Europeans and Americans died fighting against, highlighted the need for more efficient firepower. The machine gun, which became the star of infantry combat, showed commanders and tacticians that automatic fire was here to stay, paving the way for the rise of light machine guns.

This led to the creation of early squad automatic weapons. The Allies had guns like the Chauchat and the Lewis gun. The Germans had guns like the Madsen. These all fell into the category of machine rifles. Lightweight firepower was a must-have, and by the end of the war, machine rifles and submachine guns became new parts of modern military arsenals.

The Evolution of Light Machine Guns and Machine Rifles

Machine rifles evolved, and guns like the Bren and the BAR took center stage. The Germans developed the first modern General-Purpose Machine Guns with the MG 34 and MG 42. These were much lighter than most machine gun designs and purpose-built for infantry forces. They chambered 7.92mm Mauser and were belt-fed.

Military forces worldwide looked for ways to trim the weight of their old machine guns to make them easier for the infantry to carry. That’s how we got the M1919A4, A5, and A6. These were adaptations of guns and weren’t as graceful or handy as the purpose-built German designs. While they were considered light machine guns of the era, these were still crew-served weapons.

These weapons formed a base of fire weapons for the early world of maneuver warfare. None are what we consider light machine guns these days. Machine rifles, in particular, offered an early version of a squad support weapon for basic infantry squad functions.

The SMG Entry

The infantry owns the last 100 yards of every battlefield. As units came into close combat territory, guns like M1919A6 and even the lighter MG42 became more difficult to use. As you close into close combat, even the one-man-wielded BAR becomes difficult to mount. This is where submachine guns came in.

The submachine offered capable and portable firepower. Guns like the Thompson and M3, the German MP40, the British STEN, and a handful of Russian bullet hoses provided much smaller, faster-firing weapons that could suppress the enemy up close and kill the enemy easier than battle rifles and 30-plus pound machine guns.

As other fire teams or squads maneuvered on the enemy, submachine guns could keep heads down. These became proto-SAWs that were only efficient in close combat.

A Break For the M14

After World War II and Korea, the Army squad was armed with M1 Garands, M3 SMGs, BARs, and M1/M2 carbines. The Army wanted to squeeze all those guns into one and simplify the logistics. This resulted in the M14 and the short-lived M15. They would be rifles capable of automatic fire and replace a half-dozen weapons in an infantry squad. The M14 would be both the main fighting arms and the gun responsible for laying down suppressive fire within a rifle squad.

In 1943, the Soviets began developing a light machine gun as we know it today. This gun became the belt-fed RPD, which chambered the 7.62x39mm round. It’s a true light machine gun and became an enemy weapon in Vietnam.

The M60 would be the belt-fed medium general-purpose machine gun, and that would be that. As we all know, that was not that. The M14 had a service life shorter than those guys who couldn’t pass a hump at infantry school. The M16 replaced it in Vietnam, and it was the M16 and the M60, but the M60 was a crew-served weapon that wasn’t organic to a rifle squad.

As a replacement, the Army issued snap-on bipods. These were issued one per fireteam, and the automatic rifleman with the bipod-equipped M16 was allowed to hit go on his fire selector. During Vietnam, Eugene Stoner introduced the Stoner 63, which the United States military tested in small numbers.

The Marines found it too maintenance-heavy for general use. The SEAL Teams tested it and loved it. Specifically, they loved the belt-fed light machine version of the gun, an 11.7-pound, belt-fed 5.56-caliber machine gun. This is one of the first successful, major implementations of a light machine gun.

The Cold War Til Today

Throughout the 1970s, belt-fed light machine guns became more in vogue. The Soviets experimented with the IP-2 in 5.45. The Belgians developed the 5.56 FN Minimi. The Spanish adopted the CETME Ameli, and on and on. This led to the United States’s own Squad Automatic Weapon. The M249 is an American adaptation of the FN Minimi and has served since 1984.

The light machine gun concept is falling out of favor. Guns like the Evolys from FN are impressive, but we are seeing a move to machine rifles worldwide. There has also been a move from light machine guns to lighter medium machine guns that have more reach and punch. As part of the NGSW program, the M250 from SIG was selected in SIG’s not-so-intermediate 6.8mm cartridge.

While the light machine gun isn’t fully gone, its future seems to be up in the air. Maybe it won’t be the future of squad support weapons, but maybe lighter machine guns remain the best choice for so-called light infantry. Only time will tell.

The Hi Power, known generically as P-35 because it was introduced in 1935, is a modern classic. Conceived by the incomparable John Moses Browning and finalized into the form we know it by his protégé Dieudonne Saive after Browning’s death, the P-35 was adopted by many nations, and it was manufactured in multiple countries — sometimes with a license, and sometimes not.

For decades it was the official military gun of the British Commonwealth nations and indeed, a majority of NATO countries. During World War II, even the Nazis used the Hi Power after they overran Belgium and took over the FN factory. The CIA also had quite a few in their armory.

It was the first popular double-stack 9mm, its magazine holding 13 rounds of 9mm. Many considered it John Browning’s ultimate handgun design. The grip shape fit both small and large hands. It was reliable with the full metal jacket 9mm Luger it was designed for.

An Imperfect Classic?

However, it had its shortcomings. Its burr hammer often bit the web of the shooter’s hand. The thumb safety was small and flat with a mushy feel that made it hard for the hand to know whether it was “on” or “off” safe. It was iffy in terms of feeding most hollow point rounds.

Regular users learned it was most reliable with the magazine loaded one round down: British SAS guys told me they’d be docked a week’s pay for every Browning magazine they were found with that had been topped off with the 13^th round.

It was not drop-safe with a round in the chamber. Nor was it as durable as a 1911; in Caracas I was shown multiple P-35 frames that had been broken by hot ammo from Venezuela’s CAVIM factory, and I saw the same in Britain due to the hot Radway Green Arsenal 2Z ammo their military used.

In recent years, quality pistols of this design were becoming harder and harder to find, with the original Hi Power being discontinued. Remember that song that goes “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”? Springfield Armory heard the music and danced to the tune, and in 2021 introduced their own version, the topic of this article, the SA-35.

Enter the SA-35

Springfield Armory took a very specific approach to the SA-35. They decided to keep all the classic features people knew and loved about the gun, and update/modernize/improve the ones they didn’t — all while keeping a classic profile.

Good high-visibility fixed sights. A smooth trigger. No mag disconnector to begin with and thus, drop-free magazines. The iconic burr hammer configured so it didn’t bite the hand. And stocks in a Craig Spegel configuration that felt even better in the hand than the original. Moreover, it came with Mec-Gar’s new 14-round P-35 magazine that worked 100%. It would have been hard to ask for more.

The market agreed.

Shooting the SA-35

I’ve shot three samples of the SA-35 fairly intensively, and bought one of them for personal use. None has yet malfunctioned. They were all consistently excellent. They come throated for hollow points and happily gobble up hot loads: +P, +P+, and 9mm NATO. I’ve never seen an SA-35 bite a shooter’s hand. Springfield Armory assures me that the SA-35 is drop-safe with a round in the chamber.

About the only thing I could ask for would be an ambidextrous safety, but I’m right-handed and the single-side lever on the Springfield gun works just fine. Mine remains completely “out of the box.”

In 2022, teaching a MAG-40 class in Delaware, on a whim I borrowed an SA-35 from my friend and host Dave, who has an excellent YouTube channel called “Justin Opinion”, to demonstrate the qualification course of fire for a couple of dozen students.

The bone-stock P-35 gave me a perfect score, 300 out of 300, with a group that measured about four and a half inches for 60 timed shots from four to 15 yards, including one-handed firing with either hand. That speaks well for the gun’s “shootability.” If an arthritic septuagenarian can do that with the SA-35, think what you could do with it.

Value

If I could condense my opinion of the SA-35 to one word, it would be “value.” In its last year of production, the original P-35 started at over $1,100 in 2018 money. Back in the day, the 1980s and early ’90s, to get a Hi Power customized to the equivalent of an SA-35 was around $1,500, dollars that were then worth a helluva lot more than they are now.

The MSRP of an SA-35 like mine starts at $799, and has the same features and performance of the custom guns of yore.

You’re getting a gun with a heck of a lot of heritage and panache, not to mention a very controllable 5½-lb. trigger and a famously good fit to many hands. I’ve noticed that a lot of petite females and men with short fingers take particularly well to the P-35. Recoil is mild and very easily controllable, and by cocking the hammer to take mainspring resistance out of the equation, the slide is easy to run.

The great gun guru Jeff Cooper, who considered the 9mm impotent, once said that no gun fit his hand better than the High Power, and it was a shame it was not chambered for a caliber of consequence.

I load my SA-35 with Winchester 127-gr. +P+ Ranger-T 9mm, which runs at 1,250 feet per second, only 100 foot-seconds short of .357 Magnum with similar bullet weights. That largely eliminates the “inconsequential caliber” argument.

Back when it was introduced, I wrote in GUNS magazine and in On Target that the Springfield Armory SA-35 was the best value of the year. Now, in the mid-2020s, I see no need to modify that judgment.